Thursday evening, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson broke news of additional problematic blog posts from Joy Reid, the MSNBC host still seen as a “Hero of the Resistance.” One of her current positions is that opposition to illegal immigration is, in a criticism she directed at Carlson himself in January, steeped in “blatantly white nationalist” rhetoric. But in the mid-2000s, she was, among other things, an ardent Lou Dobbs fan who objected to Democrat Howard Dean’s tagging of Republicans as “the party of Whitey.” Really.

Usually when thousands gather on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) campus, it’s to cheer on the greatest college football team of all time, the Nebraska Cornhuskers (because this a blog and I’m allowed to say that about my alma mater; people are also there for the marching band which is the Pride of All Nebraska).

But on Sunday, thousands lined the sidewalks surrounding UNL’s campus for something completely different – to pray.

Inspired by a massive rosary event along the borders of Poland last year, the Diocese of Lincoln’s Eucharistic Family Rosary Crusade coordinated a similar event on Sunday, during which approximately 3,500 – 4,000 Catholic Nebraskans lined the largest university campus in the state to pray the rosary for peace.

“I was edified by the more than 3,000 people who came out to pray the rosary for peace,” said Bishop James Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln.

“It was a beautiful witness of the devotion to Mary that is present in the lives of Catholics throughout the Diocese of Lincoln. The Blessed Virgin Mary always leads us to Jesus, and Jesus is the Prince of Peace.” …

Tuesday evening (for Wednesday’s print edition), New York Times reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis, covering President Donald Trump’s rally in Nashville, Tennessee, reported that it attracted “about 1,000″ attendees. The Times issued a correction on Wednesday, stating that “the fire marshal’s office estimated that approximately 5,500 people attended the rally.” So the crowd was 5-1/2 times larger than originally reported. How can that happen?

On Maria Bartiromo’s Wednesday morning Fox Business show, the host asked Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson to respond a Tuesday Washington Examiner op-ed by Alveda King, a longtime pro-life activist and niece of Martin Luther King Jr. King contended that if Starbucks is “really serious about eliminating racism,” it will “stop funding” Planned Parenthood. When asked if his company would do that, Johnson said that he’s “not aware that … we do fund Planned Parenthood,” and didn’t answer Bartiromo’s question.

Given how weak reported spending on goods was in the first quarter (a negative contribution to GDP of 0.24 points) and the relatively modest bounceback in inventories (only +0.43 points after -0.53 the previous quarter), I think there’s some potential for an upside surprise. But we’ll see.

The report will be here at 8:30. I begin evaluating it until 9 a.m. after the ADP conference call ends.

HERE IT IS (analysis begins a 9 a.m.: Good grief, it dropped a bit to 2.2 percent —

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2018 (table 1), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2017, real GDP increased 2.9 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the “advance” estimate issued last month. In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 2.3 percent. With this second estimate for the first quarter, the general picture of economic growth remains the same; downward revisions to private inventory investment, residential fixed investment, and exports were partly offset by an upward revision to nonresidential fixed investment.

Real gross domestic income (GDI) increased 2.8 percent in the first quarter, compared with an increase of 1.0 percent (revised) in the fourth quarter. The average of real GDP and real GDI, a supplemental measure of U.S. economic activity that equally weights GDP and GDI, increased 2.5 percent in the first quarter, compared with an increase of 2.0 percent in the fourth quarter (table 1).

The increase in real GDP in the first quarter reflected positive contributions from nonresidential fixed investment, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by a negative contribution from residential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of
GDP, increased (table 2).

The deceleration in real GDP growth in the first quarter reflected decelerations in PCE, exports, state and local government spending, and federal government spending and a downturn in residential fixed investment. These movements were partly offset by an upturn in private inventory investment and a larger increase in nonresidential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decelerated.

Current-dollar GDP increased 4.2 percent, or $202.7 billion, in the first quarter to a level of $19.96 trillion. In the fourth quarter, current-dollar GDP increased 5.3 percent, or $253.5 billion (table 1 and table 3).

The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 2.7 percent in the first quarter, compared with an increase of 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter (table 4). The PCE price index increased 2.6 percent, compared with an increase of 2.7 percent. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index increased 2.3 percent, compared with an increase of 1.9 percent (appendix table A).

UPDATE: Here’s the detail —

The decrement from consumption expenditures on goods dipped as I expected, but the inventory change went the other way by 0.30 points, from +0.43 to +0.13. If today’s contribution holds, it’s reasonable to believe that inventory change will be a more positive second-quarter contributor.

Though overall fixed investment barely changed, the key nonresidential component, which is an important driver of future GDP growth, was revised up from 0.76 points to 1.13 points:

That 1.13-point contribution is the biggest single-quarter contribution since 3Q14.

During the next 9 quarters (3Q14 through 4Q16), nonresidential fixed investment GDP contributions totaled only 0.23 points — an average barely exceeding zero per quarter. Collectively, companies for all practical purposes stopped investing in the U.S.

During the most recent five quarters (1Q17 through 1Q18), nonresidential fixed investment GDP contributions have totaled 4.23 points, averaging 0.85 points per quarter. At long last, companies have been investing in the U.S. again.

Though it still needs to get stronger, this a critical good-news turnaround which offsets the not-cheery news of today’s slight overall drop.

As was the case in 2017, this report has been showing more private-sector job additions than the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the differences aren’t as great as those we seen last year. Through this year’s first four months, ADP shows 914,000 private-sector jobs added; BLS shows 812,000.

The report will be here at 8:15. I’ll attend the 8:30 conference call.

HERE IT IS: A bit lower than expected, for the first time in a while —

Private-sector employment increased by 178,000 from April to May, on a seasonally adjusted basis.

“The hot job market has cooled slightly as the labor market continues to tighten,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute. “Healthcare and professional services remain a model of consistency and continue to serve as the main drivers of growth in the services sector and the broader labor market as well.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Job growth is strong, but slowing, as businesses are unable to fill a record number of open positions. Wage growth is accelerating in response, most notably for young, new entrants and those changing jobs. Finding workers is increasingly becoming businesses number one problem.”

March went from 241K to 198K (43K drop; March was also originally 241K).

That’s a huge, 108K drop in prior-month figures.

CONFERENCE CALL NOTES:

MARK ZANDI; Very solid, but we’ve seen some slowing in job growth due to increasing difficulty businesses are having filling open positions. Record job openings per BLS. Only sector that is soft is brick-and-mortar retailers. Higher minimum-wage increases may be having an impact too in that area.

Growth is being constrained for the first time in over a decade by a shortage of workers, which will intensify given the fiscal stimulus hitting the economy (tax cuts, govt. spending).

Projecting employment growth at current rate of growth will cause the unemployment rate to hit 3.0 percent by the end of the decade.

Job growth is broad-based. Contstruction, manufacturing, health care, education. Also across company sizes, unlike 7-8 years ago, when adds were more in larger-company sector. Everyone’s firing on all cylinders.

Slowing job growth due to tight labor supply.

QUESTIONS:

ME (average work week with every new job since December 2016 being full-time and previous-month writedowns in today’s ADP report) — Really no good answer. Says he’ll look at ADP data for work-week evidence. There has been a long-term trend towards reduced work weeks which might be offsetting otherwise expected upward moves.

Rugaber from AP on effects of tariffs; Not seeing it in jobs data yet. If it appears it would be in manufacturing and transportation and agriculture, but no evident in data so far. Too early to tell. Not affecting hiring, but may be affecting business investment. Currently, businesses may be hiring in advance of the need.

OVERALL: I’m not chastened by Zandi’s optimism. Guarded optimism is justified, but that’s it. All of a sudden, a report which turned in results over 240K per month in December, January, and February show an average of only 180K per month in the past three months. Stabilizing at that level in future months would be okay; further declines would not be okay.

NOTE: A heavily revised version of this post went up at NewsBusters on June 2, reflecting President Trump’s June 1 announcement that the June 12 Singapore summit is on.
____________________________________

Friday, the New York Times, published a claim now established as false about the Trump administration’s planning for a U.S.-North Korea summit. Mollie Hemingway at TheFederalist.com identified the real problem Monday: “The New York Times couldn’t be trusted to accurately summarize what … (a) White House official said.” The press wants us to believe that Trump’s error in contending that the falsely reported conversation didn’t happen is more serious than the Old Gray Lady’s fake news.

When James Harrison was 14 years old, he underwent a major surgery that required blood donations to sustain his life.

Afterward, at that young age, Harrison decided that he would begin donating his blood to help others in need, CNN reports.

More than 60 years later, the Australian man has been declared a national hero for donating blood nearly every week of his life and saving millions of babies’ lives. He is known as the “Man with the Golden Arm.”

Last week, Harrison made his last donation before the country’s age cutoff of 81, according to the report.

His unique blood type made the donations even more vitally important. According to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, only about 50 other people in Australia are known to have the same type.

“Every bag of blood is precious, but James’ blood is particularly extraordinary. His blood is actually used to make a life-saving medication, given to moms whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies. Every batch of Anti-D that has ever been made in Australia has come from James’ blood,” said Jemma Falkenmire of the Red Cross. “And more than 17 percent of women in Australia are at risk, so James has helped save a lot of lives.”

The organization estimated Harrison’s donations have helped save more than 2.4 million babies’ lives.

In one of the more bizarre self-awareness fails ever, leftist activists and politicians have taken to Twitter to denounce conditions unaccompanied illegal-immigrant minors face at federal detention centers. They’re contending that the photos involved reflect conditions existing now during President Donald Trump’s administration. There’s one “little” problem: The photos involved are from a 2014 Arizona Republic story, i.e., they’re from the Obama era. Even an online item published Friday at the Washington Post uses two of those 2014 photos. It’s a fake-news feast.

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